When a child has special needs, all who come into touch with them must adjust to what their condition needs in order for them to feel comfortable. However, not all understand the efforts and unique care that the parents provide for their kid, which can have an impact on relationships like in this story below. A mother experienced it firsthand and questioned whether she was doing too much. Read the whole story and what would you do in this situation?
Source: Reddit
My husband and I have 4 kids (Allie 17, Andrew 15, Charlotte 12, and Lucas 9) and we’ve been fostering Emily (6) for almost a year.
Emily has special needs. She gets overwhelmed easily and when she gets overwhelmed she hides. Emily is also very small and a master at getting herself into tight spaces (under the couch, inside a kitchen cabinet, inside a doll house, etc.) so when she hides it can take forever to find her. She’ll also lock the door of the room that she’s hiding in then hide to make it that much harder to get to her.
We bought her a tent shortly after she moved in with us. We let her pick out everything in the tent from the mat on the floor to the toys and books inside and we got her to go to her tent whenever she gets overwhelmed or feels like she has to hide. Nobody is allowed in that tent without Emily’s permission. We have the tent in a corner in the living room. It’s one of the few places where she can’t lock a door and we can see her in the tent from most places in the house.
My family hosted Christmas this year. Before everyone came over, we told Emily to put away whatever toys she didn’t want anyone playing with. She put some of her toys in her tent and some in her room and insisted on locking the door.
When everyone got here, Emily hid in her tent and started to play with her toys. We explained to the kids that the tent is Emily’s special place and that they are not allowed to go inside or use any of the toys inside. The kids were upset but we had a couple toys for them, plus Lucas was willing to share his toys.
My siblings approached me multiple times on Christmas and asked why I put something so tempting as a tent full of toys in front of their kids then say they’re not allowed to use it. I explained that the tent prevents Emily from endangering herself and that it has to be there because it’s one of the few places where we can see it from most places in the house.
When we got Emily out of the tent, some kids tried to go inside and I told them they’re not allowed in there even when Emily isn’t in the tent. I closed it up and put duct tape on the zipper to prevent the kids from opening it.
Some siblings left right after we ate because of the tent and some stayed but berated me in private for “taunting” their kids with the tent.
My parents agree with my siblings that it was rude and want to host future holidays so Emily won’t have the tent. Was I the a**hole for keeping the tent in plain sight when there were kids that would want to use it?
Here are a few comments on the story where it was originally posted:
